Welcome
This is the kitchen where we talk about food, life, and recovery—a spiritual path to healing and peace.

Invitation
You are invited to keep coming back to A Cup of Kindness to share your experience, strength and hope; fears, doubts and insecurities; and to pick up information, inspiration … and have a little fun!

My story
In January 2007, at the age of 51, I joined a 12-step program and began my recovery from food addiction, losing 75 pounds in the process. Read more…

In January 2011, at the age of 55, I began my recovery from a multi-trauma accident, 36 fractures, damaged lungs, and post traumatic stress. Read more…

I am deeply grateful for all the kindnesses, large and small, offered to me in recovery. Here I am... alive… still making progress … still not perfect … finding a new way forward in a growing community of women and men who share a lot in common around food and life.

I hope you'll join me in this kitchen and let me know what's cooking with you.

Salads

I enjoy the same simple salad just about every day and it’s completely satisfying to me, but every so often I get more creative whether it’s a weekend when I have a little extra time, a holiday or when company is coming for a meal.

I go for organic foods, including Paul Newman’s organic extra virgin olive oil. Olive oil is one of the healthiest foods for my body, so it makes sense to me to spend more for organic.

Salad dressing is my excuse for using my absolutely favorite kitchen utensil. It’s a small whisk introduced to me on Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows. It’s great for stirring yogurt, scrambling eggs, and emulsifying salad dressing. At some point we’ll get a photo up so you can see it.

Measure 1 tablespoon olive oil into a wooden salad bowl; and whisk in about 1/3 of a tablespoon balsamic vinegar, or fresh lime or lemon juice. Put the salad fixings on top of the dressing and toss it up. That’ll do you.

Recently, I’ve been attempting to recreate my late father’s salad dressing. It was something he did very well. He would finely mince a clove of garlic on a wooden cutting board and then mash it with the edge of a big knife into coarse salt, making a sort of paste. Into a clean Grey Poupon Dijon jar, he would add the garlic and salt to a 3 to 1 ratio of olive oil to apple cider vinegar; with freshly ground pepper, dried herbs and a dollop of the afore-mentioned Dijon mustard. Then shake-shake-shake up the dressing; pour it onto the washed and dried salad; toss-toss-toss, serve and eat!

Then there are times when it feels more like a meal to me to have my salad on its own with the other elements of the meal on a separate plate.

The foods with a comment in parentheses are other non-salad elements of a meal—protein, grain, cooked vegetable, fruit and dairy. Not everyone has all of these elements in their food plan, so if you get ‘em, eat ‘em. If not, never mind…

A Daily Salad

2 oz romaine lettuce

6 oz mix of cherry tomatoes, cucumber, carrot, radishes and mushrooms

1 tablespoon olive oil and a good squeeze of fresh lemon or lime—I like it tart!

Southwestern Salad

Make this salad ahead so that the flavors of the dressing infuse the other ingredients. It’s a great one-dish meal and it travels well.

This is great with a bowl of polenta on the side (grain–weigh 2 oz dry before cooking). I cook the corn grits in 8 oz of water with a grind of nutmeg and a slight dash of cayenne. Watch out with that cayenne! It’s hot!

I am really looking forward to more of your recipes, including your musings and details on each one of them. When I see this list of salads here I am inspired but I can’t help think that every one of them, and the wonderful dressing recipe (THANK YOU!) each deserve its own posting, in good time, to be considered and savored in each of their glory.

We’re on the same weighing and measuring of food (and life) plan that you are, Valerie. Thanks for these salad ideas. They meet my need for variety as well as sustenance in a beautiful way. Love your site, BTW!

Valerie,
What an inspiration you are. I love this blog, recipes and all. I wish you continued strength and a complete recovery, love and peace. You’re a light to so many of us and I thank you for that.

Dear Sandy, I very much appreciate your good wishes and your generous comments – especially that you love the recipes, too. It feels like a real blessing to catch a thought, put it into writing, share it with others, and receive messages in return that the thought landed gently. It’s a real circle. The Light that’s in me I see in you. Love & Light, Valerie